Let’s start by creating a dedicated configuration file in your home directory. Its content is quite straight-forward, as you can see in my /home/kevin/.offlineimaprc, which backup two Gmail accounts:

[general]
accounts = gmail_account1, gmail_account2
maxsyncaccounts = 3
ui = Noninteractive.Basic

[Account gmail_account1]
localrepository = gmail_account1_local
remoterepository = gmail_account1_remote

[Repository gmail_account1_local]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/gmail-backup-account1

[Repository gmail_account1_remote]
type = IMAP
remotehost = imap.gmail.com
remoteport = 993
remoteuser = account1@gmail.com
remotepass = XXXXXXXX
ssl = yes
maxconnections = 1
realdelete = no
folderfilter = lambda foldername: foldername not in ['[Gmail]/%s' % f for f in ['All Mail', 'Trash', 'Spam', 'Starred', 'Important']]

[Account gmail_account2]
localrepository = gmail_account2_local
remoterepository = gmail_account2_remote

[Repository gmail_account2_local]
type = Maildir
localfolders = ~/gmail-backup-account2

[Repository gmail_account2_remote]
type = IMAP
remotehost = imap.gmail.com
remoteport = 993
remoteuser = account2@gmail.com
remotepass = XXXXXXXX
ssl = yes
maxconnections = 1
realdelete = no
folderfilter = lambda foldername: foldername not in ['[Gmail]/%s' % f for f in ['All Mail', 'Trash', 'Spam', 'Starred', 'Important']]

Notice how we use a Python lambda expressions to filter out some Gmail’s virtual folders.

Then all you have to do is to launch the offlineimap command-line itself with the right user, for example in a cron job:

00 20 * * * kevin offlineimap

A final warning: OfflineImap is fully bi-directional. This mean local deletion propagates to the remote server. This is can be quite dangerous so be careful not touching your local folders. If for any reason you’d like to reset your backups, stop OfflineImap processes first, then remove its cache folder (~/.offlineimap/) before removing the local folders themselves (~/gmail-backup-account*).

Also, intensively playing with OfflineImap to adjust its configuration may trigger the infamous Gmail’s “Temporary Error 500″. In this case don’t panic: it seems to be a common Gmail’s auto-immune response against suspect activity. It happened to me and in the end my account and mails were safe: I just had to wait a few hours to let it resume normal operations.

Today I was asked to keep users logged-in on OpenERP’s 6.0 web client. The latter being powered by CherryPy, it was a matter of adding the following configuration directive in the web client configuration file to increase the session timeout:

tools.sessions.timeout = 720

Now this will keep any client sessions opened for 12 hours (12h * 60 minutes = 720 minutes) before expiring. This is enough to keep employees not complaining about having to login to OpenERP several times a day.

Problem solved !

Oh, and another way to address this issue consist in implementing some kind of Single Sign-On. And you know what ? We have that in store thanks to the smile_sso module for OpenERP !

A quick and dirty hack to prevent such events is to add a hard-coded warning message to all content produced by OpenERP:

The result above was produced on OpenERP 6.0 thanks to the following patch on the header.mako template file:

--- addons/openerp/controllers/templates/header.mako.orig       2012-02-20 11:13:08.228864937 +0000
+++ addons/openerp/controllers/templates/header.mako    2012-02-20 11:12:41.361480113 +0000
@@ -115,3 +115,18 @@
         });
     });
 </script>
+
+<!-- Custom header banner -->
+</tr><tr>
+<style type="text/css">
+    #warning-banner {
+        background-color: #c00;
+        color: #fff;
+        text-align: center;
+        font-weight: bold;
+        padding: 0.6em;
+    }
+</style>
+<td id="warning-banner" colspan="3">
+    <p>Warning: this is a pre-production OpenERP instance.</p>
+</td>

The version I found to work on my Ubuntu 11.04 is the SSL Network Extender (SNX) R71 package that can be downloaded there (source).

Just for reference, the build working for me is numbered 800005013, and here is a copy of what to expect when the connection succeed:

$ snx -s vpn.example.net -u my_user
Check Point's Linux SNX
build 800005013
Please enter your password:

SNX - connected.

Session parameters:
===================
Office Mode IP      : 10.32.10.23
DNS Server          : 10.168.10.1
Secondary DNS Server: 10.168.10.2
Timeout             : 3 hours

The thing is that if you activate thumbnails, you’ll end up with this kind of ugly list:

So I’ve written some CSS to beautify this, and make the final result aligns with TwentyEleven (WordPress default theme):

And here is the CSS producing the result above:

#crp_related ul {
  list-style: none;
  float: left;
  margin: 0;
}
#crp_related li, #crp_related a {
  float: left;
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
  text-align: center;
}
#crp_related li {
  margin: .9em;
  border: 1px solid #ddd;
  padding: 6px;
}
#crp_related li:hover {
  background: #eee;
  border-color: #bbb;
}
#crp_related a {
  width: 150px;
  height: 150px;
}
#crp_related a:hover {
  text-decoration: none;
}
#crp_related img {
  max-width: 150px;
  margin: auto;
}
#crp_related .crp_title {
  position: absolute;
  height: inherit;
  bottom: 6px;
  left: 6px;
  padding: 3px;
  width: 144px;  /* = 150px - (3px * 2) */
  color: #fff;
  font-size: .9em;
  text-shadow: #000 .1em .1em .2em;
  background: rgb(0.5, 0.5, 0.5);
  background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
}
#crp_related li:hover .crp_title {
  background: rgb(0.2, 0.2, 0.2);
  background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8);
}

I’ve integrated this CSS code via a widget, using the same technique I’ve detailed here.

This CSS was tested against the version 1.7.2 of Contextual Related Posts, and for reference, here is my plugin configuration:

And FYI, my post default thumbnail is from KDE’s Oxygen icon set, which I found on my system in /usr/share/icons/oxygen/128x128/apps/knotes.png.

That video was mostly shot with my Canon EOS 7D in 1080p at 24fps, with a Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II VC LD IF lens.

The final video also include footage from various people in the audience:

• Jim from Maomium tested during the concert its brand new Sony Alpha SLT-A33, equipped with a Sony 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 SAM DT zoom lens, which produces nice 1080i streams at 50 fps;
• Loïc filmed in 720p/30fps with Tomasito‘s Canon PowerShot SX200IS (which was used to produce Omashay‘s Wish You Looked at Me music video);
• and finally Sylvie shot at 480p/30fps with Dam‘s point-and-shoot camera, the one he uses for his guitar cover videos.

The video was edited with the latest version of Kdenlive and exported to a 1080p/24fps stream:

If you enjoyed the music and atmosphere of the video, I urge you to go to the next Cool Cavemen’s concert. And because I know the majority of my readership can’t be in the north of France next month, let me remind you there’s still a one hour video of our biggest 2009 concert available online (on which I did all the lighting).

And if you liked the first song, its called Belgique mon Namurrr and you can watch the whole of it here (lyrics are in subtitles):

The amount of collected funds is currently at $3,041 from the $4,000 required to pay a developer to work full-time for 2 months. With only $959 remaining and 41 days left, you have no reason to not contribute to the best open-source video editor out there.

I started to play with Kdenlive several years ago with version 0.3. I even created some RPM packages back then. Kdenlive suffered from heavy instabilities in its early days.

But this was a long time ago and today it’s the most stable and practical video editing software available on Linux. It’s the best open-source tool for amateur DSLR shooters, and is worth a try even if your primary desktop manager is not KDE.

Today this software is the one I spend most of my time in at home (just after a web browser and a command-line terminal). And I’ve never felt as productive as the last 2 years: I edited about 2 hours of videos in that period.

Kdenlive must continue to grow. And because I want to use it in my future projects, it makes sense to make a donation. So what are you waiting for contributing too ?

And here are the official stills of the short: